


Jinx Removing

by Go0se



Series: Bandom Bingo Fills [3]
Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Bandom Bingo 2017, Established Relationship, F/F, Friendship, Implied/Referenced Alcoholism but it's in the past, Love Wins, Trans Female Character, Trans Lady Frankie Iero, Weddings, Women being married to each other is totally punk rock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2017-05-01
Packaged: 2018-10-17 12:17:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10593849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Go0se/pseuds/Go0se
Summary: Shortly after the right to equal marriage gets passed by the U.S. Supreme Court, Frankie and Jamia get married for a second time.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 'genderswap' fill on my bandom bingo card and took such a long time, y'all. Such a long time.  
> Built off of my previous fic 'A Solid Right Hook', which you can totally read if you want (coughs product placement). The title comes from [ Jinx Removing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLeekX2znNU) by Jawbreaker. Fun fact, the song is also the origin of actual!Frank Iero's ribbony neck tattoo, which Frankie in this fic shares.
> 
> -

Their first wedding had been wonderful. Despite their kind of difficult engagement, with its less-than-awesome start in a ditch beside a darkened park at night and Frankie being on tour for almost two consecutive fucking years during it. It’d been worth it, and the day itself had been wonderful. Both Jamia’s and Frankie’s families had shelled out significant amounts for the reception, and their guest list had seventy people.  

 

They didn't spend the night before it together, even though they’d been sleeping with each other for years, because Frankie was a superstitious woman and also a tenacious motherfucker when she wanted to be. She’d planned for this shit.  
Several people had offered to party it up with her but she didn’t go to a bar or anything. Instead, she spent the few hours before her wedding sober in a tattooist’s chair with Dewees chatting to her from one side to take her mind off the not-insignificant sting.

 

Jamia had happy-cried when she saw the new neck tattoo, so Frankie counted it as a win.

Frankie herself had also cried. A bunch of people in their audience cried, which was kind of hilarious as Frankie and Jamia both ran pretty heavily in punk crowds so there was a significant amount of holding tissues around nose studs and lip rings. Frankie’s mom, who along with the Nestors had been ushered to a seat right in the front and given a corsage as big as some of Frankie and Jamia’s dogs, went through an entire kleenex box all on her own.

 

Jamia had worn a light fitted honest-to-God wedding gown with lace and two layers of skirts, the very bottom of the hem tinged with blue like in the Halloween wedding they’d always joked about having and a veil floating over her head like clouds accenting the clear sky, and she'd been radiant.

Frankie loved her with every single one of her own fucked-up internal organs. Everything she was and everything she’d ever be.

 

 

 

Almost ten years down the line and Frankie still did, even though her organs had gotten even more bent out of shape in the intervening time.

It had been a strange, hard couple of years, and then she’d woke up at the end of June to Jamia shaking her shoulders. She’d flailed around, mumbling something incoherent, but had finally cracked her eyes open when Jamia took her face in both of her palms and kissed her enough that Frankie sat up in their bed.

It’d been a while since they’d done something like this spur-of-the-moment. _Okay,_ Frankie thought. She curled her fingers into her wife’s hair and kissed her back, then pulled away to turn her head and cough. “I haven't brushed my teeth yet,” she cautioned, gravelly with her usual early morning voice. Not that that’d stopped them before, but even so.

“Let’s get married again,” Jamia said.

Frankie paused, confused. Her heart reacted to this by suddenly kicking in fear for no reason. It was early, in her defense, and Jamia was being cryptic. “Isn’t the last one still active?” She mumbled.

 

In response, Jamia pulled her out of bed, much to Frankie’s groaning.

 

She quieted down in the hallway because the fog in her head had cleared enough to realize that, by some miracle, all of the kids were still asleep. In about half an hour it’d be suspicious. For now, Frankie just appreciated the silence.

Together they went down to the kitchen. Frankie had to walk down the stairs slowly so her slippers wouldn’t skate on the scrubby carpet, like an old, old lady. As if in commiseration, Mama came waddling into the hallway from the bathroom (she liked to lay on the mat in there, if she hadn’t shit on it) and followed Frankie and Jamia down the stairs, taking care to favour her right side and her droopy head.

 

“Same boat, huh, girl?” Frankie asked the dog, scooping her up when they reached the main floor. She was also careful to favour Mama’s right side, smoothing her fingers through Mama’s warm fur.

“Babe, look,” Jamia said, gesturing with her phone. She’d grabbed it from the kitchen table and had opened Twitter.  

Frankie wrinkled her nose instinctively before her brain processed what she was actually reading on the screen.

 

Admittedly, the parade of rainbow gifs and flags festooning the page were a hint. “Oh,” she said.

 

Her heart was doing something interesting but she wasn’t quite sure what it was. It was too early for it to deal with this shit.

She felt a little like she had when the twins had been one year old, and she’d been playing with them on the floor until she’d burst into tears. Pure, happy tears, that seemed more from the center of her than from her eyes. She looked at Jamia.

“We should get married again,” Jamia repeated herself. Her eyes were shining a little and her grin was the same one Frankie remembered from when they were both young, mildly drunk and stupid. (Well, stupider, maybe.)

Frankie looked from the phone to her wife again, and then set Mama down on a nearby chair so she could take Jamia tightly into her arms.  
Jamia laughed a little into her ear. “You weepy motherfucker. I love you.”  
Frankie laughed too, shamelessly wiping her tears onto Jamia’s shoulder. “I love you, too.”

They pulled apart again, right as Miles announced he was awake with his usual bump-and-babble routine of getting out of bed and making as much noise as possible. It was only a matter of time before the girls were up too. Frankie made to turn back up the stairs, but Jamia caught her arm. “So?”

“So what now?” Frankie blinked, confused again.  
Jamia grinned. “So will you marry me?”  
Oh. Frankie put her palm to her chest and pretended to consider it for a minute. “Yeah,” she said, “Okay.”  
She was laughing again when Jamia leaned in to kiss her square on the mouth.

 

*

 

So they planned their second wedding.

  
They decided to have it in August, because waiting until it was their actual anniversary again would take too long and Frankie—God willing—would be touring her new album by then anyhow. They picked the nearest Saturday to the end of the month.

After that, the planning itself only took about two weeks. It wasn’t going to be extensive like their first wedding was. For one thing Jamia had auctioned her dress off to a fundraiser for inner-city girls to have a kick-ass prom night a couple of years ago, and she didn’t want to drop another ridiculous sum of money on a second one. For another thing they had three small children to entertain, and for a third Frankie kinda didn’t want to overshadow their first wedding in her memory. So. Second wedding, not going to be a big _to-do_ affair.  
What it would be was true to her and Jamia, as a couple and as people. The first wedding had been true to them too, but as they were at the time; now they were different and their lives were fuller, and they should honour that.  
(A lady who Jamia had recently made friends with was a Wiccan and big on ‘honouring’ things, and it’d since bled into Jamia’s own vocabulary. Frankie could dig it.)

  
There was some hemming and hawing over the guest list. They finally settled on ten friends each, absolute maximum, since about thirty people were as much as would fit in their back yard where they’d have the ceremony; and that was about as many people as Frankie knew knew her actual gender, and was comfortable with celebrating it around.  
They would need to invite their immediate family members, obviously. Both of their sets of parents. Frankie drove over to her mom’s house one afternoon to invite her out loud. Jamia’s had moved out to Florida, so they had to settle for an email, but the Nestors had replied within the hour saying to tell them the date and they’d get the first flight in.  
And of course they invited Evan, who was Frankie’s brother in celebration and law as well as Jamia’s actual brother. Frankie brought it up to him in the city bus on the way to Cellebration practice, and he’d agreed immediately.  
The other guys—three of her ten guests—agreed too, when she posed the question _at_ practice. Evan got fake-upset that he hadn’t been asked already, as her literal official brother-in-law, because he was an asshole. Dewees behaved similarly when Frankie called him up during the band’s lunch break.  
Frankie rolled her eyes a lot that day. Inside, though, she was full of a happy glow as well as no-cheese pizza.

 

On the other hand, she wasn’t feeling too great a couple evenings later when Jamia came into their room and found her staring at her private Facebook page. Her group chat with everyone who'd been involved with MCR, specifically.  
Jamia slid into bed beside her and put her arm around Frankie’s shoulders. “You’re overthinking it,” she said, not gently but not unkindly either.  
“Absolutely,” Frankie agreed.    
“They all love you,” Jamia added. “They shared tiny spaces with your ass for eleven years.”  
Frankie cracked a smile, despite the anxiety gnawing at her gut. (Which reminded her she needed to book her gut-doctor appointment; there’d been a conflict with her psychiatrist’s office and her insurance company were being douches about it.) “Those’re both true, too,” she said. She still didn’t move to click anything.  
  
Despite the nonsense that every single nosy grown-ass motherfucker on Twitter and several self-righteous dipshits on Instagram had been spewing her mentions full of for two years now, Frankie did not remotely hate Gerard’s and the other’s guts, and she was not going through a tragic level of heartbreak after their torrid love affair was cut short or what the fuck ever. But Frankie can admit to herself that there is a certain level of strangeness, now, between her and her ex-band.  
For a long couple of months after the split she hadn’t really talked with any of them. Partly that was because she’d been trying to process things on her own side, but also because it was hard as shit to get into contact with the guys. Ray had been busy with his wife and newborn son, of course. Gerard had his own family and comic business and nurturing _Hesitant Alien_ into existence on top of that to worry about. Mikey fucking Way had gone down a long cold road all his own, and Frankie had been royally pissed at the man but also scared as shit that he wouldn’t come back from it. (She had actually, physically thanked God out loud when she’d read Mikey’s letter on Electric Century’s news page last year.)

But even after Frankie had had time to deal with some of her residual feelings, after Ray’s new baby grew up a little, after Mikey had started his recovery and Gerard had finished his touring, and all of it had become a bit less immediate… There was a lingering weird. Even if it was only in her own brain, which it very well might’ve been. That was the thing making Frankie nervous to click send on her group chat message with its date and time and would-you-like-to-celebrate RSVP.  
  
“Well, tell me when you get your shit together,” Jamia said finally, slipping her arm back off of Frankie’s shoulder and scooting farther down in the bed, under the blankets as she turned her back from the glare of Frankie’s laptop screen.  
Frankie laughed a little under her breath, despite herself. She deliberated for a couple more minutes but finally just shut the computer and put it (less carefully than she probably should) on the lower shelf of the nightstand. It was getting late for her to be up, anyway.

  
It took her another day and a half, but her determination to not cut out her brothers out of her life beat her anxiety and she finally sent the message.

Everything turned out fine, because her brain was a bullshit liar. Jamia rubbed it in her face a little, because of course she had known, and Frankie couldn’t even bring herself to feel annoyed.  
Ray and Mikey both wrote in to say they’d make it and they were so happy for her and they’d be bringing their respective significant others (and Ray his small child, which Frankie was delighted by). Gerard replied with a heartfelt message about how he regretted that he couldn’t make it—which made sense, since he was out in fucking Russia preaching to kids about loving themselves and supporting their friends in between songs about complex difficult memories—but he wished them nothing but love.  
Dewees, who was also in the chat, pulled his whole “I can’t believe you didn’t call me” routine again and Frankie almost literally let her entire face hit her keyboard.

Still, that warm glowy happiness in her chest was back. It was good to think that sometimes, some things wouldn’t change.

 

*

 

When their second wedding day finally arrived Frankie woke up alone. She stretched happily, sticking her arms and legs way out over the warm sheets.  
Jamia, laughing at Frankie’s insistence on it, had spent the night in the nice guest room (with the en-suite and the queen mattress). Frankie had said it was because of superstition, but really they both knew that sometimes—just sometimes—it was nice to not have to share your immediate space with another person. You could do your own thing. Jamia, for example, liked to sleep with a billion blankets even in the summer time. On Frankie’s part, it meant she could hoard all of the pillows she could possibly want around her like some kind of pillow dragon.

  
Superstition did reign a little bit though. Spouses shouldn’t see each other the night before the wedding or it’d be bad luck, or whatever. Frankie kind of liked that, she thought idly as she stared at the ceiling without moving; it felt romantic to sacrifice an evening to ensure safety in the future. Even when they’d been married for almost a decade and dating steadily for several years before that.  
Together for going on fifteen years now, and it still didn’t feel like enough time.

  
Frankie took a minute to enjoy the uninterrupted sunlight spilling in through the east window. She let her palm cup the softness of the (all hers for right now) bed, and listened to the noise of her kids downstairs in the kitchen. Jamia’s parents had flown in the night before, and they were watching the babies right then. Her mother-in-law’s sure voice rose over their squeals by promising enough pancakes for everyone. It sounded pretty good to Frankie.  
Not quite enough to make her leave the warm bed, though. Smirking to herself, she rolled over on the mattress—taking the blankets with her—and snoozed for another half an hour.

 

 

After that she got up, took her morning medications, brushed her teeth, shaved clean and then carefully combed out her hair in the shower. It’d gotten pretty long again. It was also kind of weirdly curly after she’d ran the towel over it, which wasn’t Frankie’s vibe. She knew she was being a little bit vain but she wanted it to look good. And wasn’t it her special goddamn day?

She pulled the hairdryer and Jamia’s old straightener kit out of the linen closet. Idly, she trimmed her fingernails and hummed to herself while the straightener warmed up. (It was pretty great to take as long as she needed in the bathroom every so often.)  
Once she actually started, the smell of the straightening spray and warm hair hit her like a kickball you didn’t expect. It sent her sailing right back onto the bus during Revenge, when she’d been tying everyone’s ties and drinking shitty beer, making fun of the exaggerated faces the others pulled during their pre-show beauty rituals. She smiled a little into the mirror at the memory.  
After twenty minutes of fussing her hair hung down evenly on each side of her face and to the nape of her neck in the back, smooth and glossy. Perfect.

 

 

Downstairs everything was fine. Preparations for food and drink (mostly non-alcoholic) had been made the night before, so there wasn’t any catering or anything to stress about. Frankie hadn’t even had to do much of the cooking herself. The smell of pancakes and syrup wafted through the whole house.  
Both her parents, several cousins and her mother in-law were sitting around the kitchen, and they were quick to tell Frankie that Jamia’s father had taken the kids outside to the front yard to play in the sprinkler. All of them followed it up directly with coming over to her for a hug and-or cheek kiss, saying congratulations with huge smiles on their faces.  
  
  
Frankie had come out as trans to her parents a little over a year before. She’d known she hadn’t had to, ever if she didn’t want to; but like when she’d told the guys that she was a woman, she’d wanted to. It’d been a hell of a year, so why not, anyway?  
She’d wanted to tell her in-laws, too, at the same time. Do it fast like removing a bandage. Jamia had talked to her own parents over the phone on Frankie’s behalf, to lessen some of Frankie’s anxiety—or at least focus it on one target.  
When Frankie had walked out of her family’s living room into the backyard on that day, Jamia had looked up immediately, and seeing Frankie’s wide smile had beamed back.  
Everyone had taken the news well, and though there were occasional slip-ups with pronouns for a while they were easily fixed.  
Having so many people know to address her with her home-name and pronouns was an adjustment for Frankie. Not a bad adjustment by any means, just a strange one. It’d felt almost exposing at first. Like she was a hermit crab and someone had carefully shaken her out of her shell.  
But as she’d gotten used to it, it’d felt really good, like she was in a patch of sunlight that she carried around. (The internet told her the feeling was called ‘gender euphoria’, and a lot of trans people felt it when they started transitioning, socially or with medications. Sweet as hell.)

Now, in her kitchen, she hugged everyone back and kissed her mom on both cheeks, despite Linda’s patented Jersey Woman foundation layer smudging a little on Frankie’s chin.  
It was good to have them all here. She told them so.  
“Oh, it’s good to be here, sweetheart,” her mother cooed. Then she pulled away and levelled a pointed eyebrow to Frankie’s dirty road shirt and cut off-sweatpants shorts with holes in the pockets. “Is that what you’re wearing?”  
Frankie rolled her eyes. “Yes, Ma,” she deadpanned, “Absolutely.” That sent the room laughing, Linda herself included.

“I think she looks great,” Jamia announced, coming in from the living room with Evan behind her. She locked eyes with Frankie and grinned. Her hair was up in several colours of curlers, and she was also wearing sweatpants.  
Frankie high-fived her, to more laughs, and then they both went over to the table to get some of the breakfast that’d been laid out there by their family.

 

In Frankie’s defense, the wedding was starting at five so she still had a while yet to get ready. Plus, it wasn’t going to be too big of a production anyway.  
Their first wedding had definitely been a production, and Frankie had spent about an hour getting into a clean-cut traditional suit with the right pressings on the jacket and the corsage to match the bouquet that Jamia would hold. It hadn’t been a bad experience—Frankie appreciated pageantry as much as the next lady—but it was something of a relief to not have to worry about dry-cleaning or timeframes this go around. Also, not having to worry about the metaphorical ill-fitted suit of being referred to by the wrong pronouns and wrong honorifics was a huge relief.  
Jamia had offered to go dress shopping for or with her, but in the end Frankie had decided not to wear one. She didn’t mind traditionally feminine clothes, but they weren’t her kind of style. Not really. And to wear one now it would almost be proving a point, and what did she have to prove to anyone at her own goddamn (second) wedding? Nothing at all. If any of the guests had cared about her proving things, they wouldn’t’ve come.

This time Frankie was going to be wearing her (good, non-holey, straight-legged) black jeans with a fitted button-down shirt in off-grey, and one of her mother’s blue gemstone rings on her pinky finger. Nothing fussy about it.  
She did also go out to their front yard and snip a bloom off of a dandelion to bobbypin to her hair. The weird girl in Harry Potter had talked about sun colours being good luck for weddings in _Deathly Hallows,_ and it had stuck in Frankie’s head ever since. She had to admit it looked pretty cool.

  

Guests who weren’t directly related to her started showing up around one in the afternoon. Meghan was the first. She’d taken the ferry down from NYC and then a cab to Frankie and Jamia’s front door, and greeted Frankie by immediately throwing her arms around her neck and more or less strangling her for two minutes.  
Frankie hugged back as hard as she could, laughing into her friends shoulder.  
They had been keeping ‘in touch’ through Facebook, but hadn’t seen each other in almost a year and a half. Frankie had been busy with the Patience and the label and her health and her family, while all of Meghan’s time had been taken up with either working at or planning projects for her office managing job in the Bronx. To the part of Frankie’s squirrely brain that took everything personally, some of it had sounded like excuses, even though she knew logically (and through therapy) that all the reasons Meghan had given her were legitimate ones. It was just strange, being an adult and seeing one of her oldest friends grow up too. There’d been a time when it had just been the two of them, conspiring together in Meghan’s house for an entire month in the summer—an entire ten-year-old month, imagine. Frankie had been starting to get worried they’d drift the fuck apart and never talk to each other again.  
But Meghan had taken an entire day off and travelled for four hours to see and support her now. “I missed you,” Meghan said, after they’d pulled apart for a second. She beamed. “You look awesome.”  
Frankie definitely wasn’t tearing up a little bit and if anyone said she was she’d deny it. “I missed you, too.”  
“Let her save some tears for the ceremony,” Evan snarked as he passed by behind Frankie, carrying some collapsible chairs.  
Without looking behind her Frankie flipped him off, but still pulled back from her friend. “I should show you some of the house, maybe?” She offered.  
Meghan laughed, the weird squeaky one she made when she thought something was like, extra hilarious.  
Frankie smiled again. “Everyone’s through here, come on in.”

 

Dewees arrived next, with considerably less ceremony but carrying an offering of a big-ass bottle. It was politely wrapped in thin brown paper and tied with a bow that Dewees definitely didn’t spend his own effort on, which made Frankie suspect it was booze of some kind. “Gotta protect the kid’s eyes, right?” He said, with a grin, before pulling Frankie into a bear hug. “Congratulations. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about it.”  
“Whatever,” she snickered. “Put the alcohol backyard with the others, alright?”  
“Sounds good,” Dewees agreed.  
  
The two of them started through the house together. “How’d the guys’ landscaping shape up, by the way?” He asked.  
“Oh, pretty good,” Frankie replied. She tried to be nonchalant, but missed the mark by a fair bit if Dewees’ grin was any indication.  
  
Her and Jamia had decided to hold the reception in their backyard. It was ordinarily a pretty okay place, if Frankie did say so: tall wooden fences to block out neighbours or bizarrely nosy New Jersey journalists, space for the kids and dogs to play, a small garden against the left side fence that made Frankie’s Italian roots proud. Not very organized, sure, but well-used and well-loved.  
Evan and a couple of Jamia’s cousins had cleaned it up a couple nights before, for the occasion. All the various soccer balls, dolls with crayon tattoos and missing arms, tiny shovels, skipping rope, and long-abandoned bottles of bubble fluid had been packed into the industrial-sized toy bench by the gate. Even the plastic swingset and sandbox shaped like a turtle had been moved off into the corner, hidden gracefully behind the lawnmower and a cluster of shovels which had a tarp thrown over them. The grass had been cut. The garden, weeded. Dandelions had been plucked out of the main area where the chairs would go. The whole effect had the yard neater than Frankie had seen it in literal years.  
And that’d been _before_ it’d gotten decorated from end to end with roses.  
Frankie and Jamia had planned for a low-key reception, but on the day before the wedding several huge multi-coloured bouquets showed up mysteriously at their front door. After they’d made sure it wasn’t some kind of mistake or prank from a creepy fan, Frankie had messaged the likely culprit directly. Gerard had replied with a smirking cat emoji. The fucker.  
Frankie couldn’t deny all the bouquets looked beautiful, though. As a bonus their perfume masked the definitive Jersey funk in the air that made itself known when the wind blew right, even out here in the suburbs.  
Dewees whistled lowly when he stepped into the rose-scented sunshine. After taking in the sights for a second, he turned to Frankie and gave her a thumbs up, then disappeared into the growing crowd of people to help with something that needed doing.

  
Even with the hundreds of roses, the setting wasn’t too formal.

Frankie spent the early afternoon loitering in the kitchen for the most part, close to the open window, watching her kids romp around with the rest of her family and listening to the happy bubbles of talk that were scattered throughout the yard. She spoke idly with the people who walked to and fro through the house too, including her wife—and her bride, again, today. The thought made her chest all warm, even now.  
She mostly let her family and in-laws show people into the house and then around the backyard while she relaxed, with special exceptions for when Toro and Mikey Way show up.

 

Ray knocked on the door at two-thirty. As he was a man of his word he’d brought along his amazing wife and adorable son; and also a full thirty-three-ounce bottle of his homemade BBQ sauce. “Wedding present,” he said, presenting it to Frankie. “Congratulations.”  
Frankie took the bottle in one hand and hugged him with the other. “Thank you,” she replied, and she meant it in more ways than she could adequately express out loud. And not just for the barbeque sauce.  
She hugged Christa too, who beamed at her and told her she looked beautiful, and then smooched their adorable tiny son on his fat tiny head. Frankie had forgotten how _little_ two and a half year-olds were. It was pretty great.  
Ray had been at her house before, but she still felt like she should act like an actual hostess. “Let me show you the backyard,” she said.  
After making appreciative ooh’s and ahh’s at the set-up and the thousands of flowers, Christa and Ray took the baby up to a blue bouquet and told him about it in the kind of bright parenting voices that warmed Frankie’s heart. She stood for a second just smiling at them stupidly.  
Then she went back into the house to put Ray’s gift into the fridge and show it off to Jamia, who was just as in awe of Ray’s sauce-wizard powers as Frankie herself.

 

  
Mikey arrived later, not the last of the guests but the last that Frankie had invited personally. He stood next to his girlfriend Kristin and was wearing a football hat on his head almost as large as an actual football.  
When she met them at the door Frankie did a once-over of the both of them automatically. Mikey looked alright. Compared to when she’d last seen him, anyway; he seemed sober and getting healthier again. Frankie had never met Kristin before, but she had nice hair and a nice smile, although it was a little hard to see her hair because she was sporting an equally huge football hat as her boyfriend.  
Mikey, who pretended not to notice Frankie’s quick appraisal, smiled brightly in greeting and held his hand up for a high-five.  
Frankie high-fived him with a laugh. “Everyone’s in the garden,” she said. She offered her hand to Kristin—who shook it politely—and Frankie continued, “Also your brother sent like ten million flowers, so if you’ve got allergies you’re fucked.”  
Kristin and Mikey both laughed. “I tried to talk him out of that,” Mikey said, not apologetically.  
“He wanted to send a bunch of tulips too,” Kristin amended for him. She linked her arm with Mikey, grinning at him.     
Frankie nodded, then stepped back to actually welcome them inside. “There’s a whole bunch of food back there,” she said, waving her hand around in the general direction of the kitchen. “Some of it’s vegan or dairy-free, it’s all marked on the lids—uh, please take whatever you need.”  
“Sounds great to me,” Kristin said happily. She squeezed Mikey’s bicep lightly and then made her way into the house.

Mikey smiled at her back, and then refocused. “Can I talk to you?” He asked Frankie, pointing vaguely in the direction of ‘somewhere there’s no people’.  
“If this is about a favour then you should ask my dad,” Frankie cracked, but obligingly led Mikey into the hallway by the bottom of the stairs. She was pretty sure she knew what was coming. This wasn’t the first time a Way brother had asked her into a quiet corner after he had fucked up.  
When the two of them were safely away from the chatter of the house and most people’s ears (although there was ominous thuds from overhead, where the kids’ rooms were), Mikey stood up straighter. He also took his hat off like a polite eighteenth-century gentleman. Sure enough to Frankie’s suspicions, what he opened his mouth to say was, “I was a huge dick.”  
Frankie stuck her hands in her pockets and nodded.  
Mikey exhaled. He leveled his eyes at her; they were serious and clear. “I was ill, but that’s not an entire excuse,” he said. “I didn’t take responsibility for my health or my actions, and I was an asshole to you. I’m sorry.” He paused for a moment. “You have every right to tell me to leave, and I’d understand if you did. But I’m asking for another chance. I want to be your friend.”  
Frankie nodded again, for a couple of seconds. There were a lot of things she could say right now, hissing around the back of her brain where the spite lived. “You took your fucking time” was the least of it.  
Instead of saying any of that, she opened her arms to him.  
Mikey sagged, because of the physical relief and to accept the hug, having at least not forgotten the etiquette of how to hug friends who were shorter than you when you were a fucking ent-man.  
“Try not to fuck up again,” Frankie said, while holding onto him. She could feel him shrug, and then nod.  
She knew it wasn’t an easy thing to ask of somebody. And it was mostly a bluff on her part, anyway. Maybe her heart was too soft, but she loved the guy, and she’d seen what he’d lived through as much as could be seen from the outside. He was one of her brothers. She’d give Mikey a million chances.

“Should we pretend we’re not both crying a little, or no,” she asked after a couple seconds.  
Mikey shoulders shrugged under her arms again. “A lot of people cry at weddings,” he replied, sounding slightly gravelly with a stuffed nose.  
“Hm. I’ll allow it.”

When they stepped apart, Mikey put his football cap back on and shrugged a little more inside the hoodie which he was wearing inside in the summer. Frankie pointed at it. Mikey held both of his hands out in a vague but clear sort of gesture.  
Not that he needed to, since Frankie recognized protective layers when she saw them. “Hey, you can come over here whenever you want today,” she said. “I’ll make sure no one bothers you. It’s my house, they have to listen to me.”  
“Thank you,” Mikey answered, looking relieved.  
She smiled up at him, and for that day, they left it at that.

 

 

More people migrated indoors as it got closer to five o’clock. Frankie was pretty sure the adults were hiding from the bugs, and the kids were looking for a pre-dinner snack. She spent a few minutes at the counter with Jamia’s cousin David, making organic peanut-butter and honey sandwhiches in an assembly line before handing them off on plastic plates to the various children that’d started milling around their heels.  
Jamia, at some point during the afternoon, had slipped off to get in something more comfortable. Frankie was surprised to realize she actually didn’t know what her wife meant by that, and also glad she didn’t know. [Surprises let her know Jamia cared](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ht5RZpzPqw).

 

Ten years married to your intended took a lot of the butterflies out of your stomach in the pre-wedding process, but by four-thirty there was definitely some fluttering going on in Frankie’s abdomen anyway. She kept re-straightening the dandelion in her hair, and polishing both of the rings she was currently wearing with the inside of her shirt. She felt good, but, as was her pattern, a little anxious. Not anxious; agitated?  
“Anticipatory,” Mikey suggested when Frankie brought her wording problem to him for a second opinion. Kristin, who was sitting beside Mikey and in a fierce Scrabble battle with someone on her phone, looked up and nodded in agreement.

  
Frankie was feeling pretty anticipatory. She wandered around the yard to try and find her other people to talk to about it, but everyone was occupied. Meghan was happily catching up with one of Jamia’s friends who was apparently actually a mutual friend of theirs; Ray was on diaper duty inside; and Christa (who’d told Frankie where Ray was) was sipping some wine and chatting with Dewees about the best kinds of pizza.  
  
Frankie eventually went back inside and started loading the dishwasher. She had been enjoying the relaxation—a lot, holy god—but there was a point in her day when she wanted something to do other than twiddle her thumbs. Plus they were starting to pile up on the counter to the point where if one the kids decided to toss another one up it’d end in disaster.  
After that she escaped to the basement, and the little corner of it that she’d set up as her own studio. She took down the acoustic that all of the Cellebration had signed on the last day of tour and did some simple scales, before gradually moving into a Bouncing Soul cover she knew by heart. She didn’t sing, but the strings’ hum under her fingers felt good. It settled some of the restlessness inside her core.

 

After a indeterminate amount of time, someone called down the stairs for her. Susan was at the door.

  
Susan, Jamia’s Wiccan friend and the officiant for the actual wedding ceremony. She stood on the doorstep holding a small script with a wide smile on her face. “How’s the day going?” She greeted Frankie when Frankie had finished bounding up the stairs and to the entrance to her home.  
“Good!” She replied, wheezing just a bit. “Neither, y’know, of us have gotten cold feet yet, so.”  
“Always something I look for at a wedding,” Susan agreed. “And it’s still in the back yard?”  
“Yeah—I mean, yeah, of course. Come in,” Frankie said for the last, and what felt like the billionth, time that day.

 

Everyone was waiting in the garden when she and Susan stepped out of the kitchen’s sliding door. They hadn’t quite taken their seats, but there was still a ripple of people looking back towards Frankie and smiling as there had been in her first wedding, and slightly differently at every intimate-acoustic-experience show she’d ever been hosting. Frankie smiled instinctively back at them. Someone started up a hoot, which bloomed into an applause.  
Frankie walked around the cheering crowd of her loved ones, grinning for real.

Her and Jamia had decided to forgo the traditional aisle down the center of the group because technically their families were already united, so the symbolism didn’t make sense. The chairs were all arranged in rows which got a little more haphazard as they got to the edges. In a similar fashion, her and Jamia’s guests of honour were in a blob at the front of the crowd, all mingling with each other and there to support the both of them. Mikey, Ray and Meghan were standing together. Mikey had removed his hoodie for the reception. He and Ray had, apparently, pre-co-ordinated and were wearing matching Misfits shirts above their own well-kept jeans.  
Frankie wiped at her eyes with her palm. She went over to join them, and they all smiled at her. “You ready to do this thing?” Ray asked.  
“I’m pretty sure, yeah,” she replied.  
All three of them laughed.  
  
“Jess?” Susan asked, from behind Frankie. She turned around. “I’m ready when you both are.”  
“Do you know where Jamia is?” Frankie asked. The nervous bugs in her stomach piped up a little at the thought and she had to intentionally think not to grimace.  
“Of course,” Susan said, “She’s been texting me all afternoon.”  
The bugs eased. “Okay, thank you,” Frankie said. Then laughed at herself. “Sorry, little bit jttery I guess.”  
“It happens to a lot of people,” Susan replied understandingly. “Actually—here, she’s over there now.” Susan gestured towards the back of the crowd.

Frankie turned to see her wife and current bride’s face bobbing through the crowd. She was wearing—she was wearing a hoodie, even though it was, again, the middle of summer. Frankie felt like it looked familiar, but she wasn’t sure where from. Frankie tried to send her eyebrow question-marks over the crowd, but Jamia was chatting happily with her mom who was at her side, so she didn’t receive the needed eyebrow-signal.

“Everyone, if you can make room for the other bride, please,” Susan’s voice carried over the general hubbub of the party. “We’ll be starting now.”

Everyone hushed, gradually. A lot of chairs squeaked as people sat back, or forwards, looking for the soon-to-be-double-wedded couple. The guests of honour’s blob at the front became more of a horseshoe shape, with Susan and Frankie standing in the middle. Jamia’s guests of honour shuffled to approximately her side, while Mikey, Ray and Meghan stayed behind Frankie.

The butterflies in Frankie’s stomach returned, double-time. She straightened her shirt hem and intentionally took deep breaths. Someone squeezed her shoulder; she looked behind her to see Meghan, smiling encouragingly. She had been at Frankie’s first wedding, too. The whole moment felt a little deja-vu. Frankie nodded gratefully at her, and then turned back around, feeling Meghan’s hand disappear.

Jamia had stood in front of her, about two feet away, by the time that Frankie had turned around. She looked gorgeous. Her hair fell in waves, thanks to the curlers from that morning. The open zip-up hoodie she was wearing definitely seemed familiar now, although Frankie still couldn’t consider exactly how. She had a pretty white dress on underneath it, with a neck that beautifully framed her cleavage, made of something that shimmered over her thighs when she moved.    
Frankie was absolutely going to ask if she could eat her out while Jamia was wearing that dress tonight. She absolutely didn’t say that out loud.  
  
“Ladies,” Susan said more quietly than she’d spoke before, looking from Jamia to Frankie. “We ready?” They both nodded, so she cleared her throat slightly and projected her voice again.

“Friends,” she said clearly, and the murmur of the group that had been building up with Jamia’s walk to the front quieted completely. “We’re all here today to celebrate and recognize two lives  reaffirming their choice to be partners in all things. Jamia and Jess Iero have shared hazards, heartwarming moments, and treacherous times. Both strong individually, they’ve worked hard to build a life together, including a home, two careers, three wonderful children, and a community of family and friends.” Here Susan paused, smiling a little bit, as a small cheer rose up from the crowd. “Yes. We are all enriched for knowing them both, together. And today—now that the law has gotten some of its head out of its ass--” Another cheer, louder. “—we are here to recognize them as they are. Two women who are in love, committed to each other, and in the middle of a long road they’ll share together. Jamia, you have a few words.”

  
Jamia nodded. Out of her sweater pocket she pulled a piece of paper. She did the little _ahem_ move that people did before speeches, then looked up and into Frankie’s eyes. “Jess,” she started, smiling gently.  
Frankie nodded, unable to talk through her heart swelling in her throat. Her eyes were getting a little misty again, but she could still see Jamia as clear as day.  
Jamia cleared her throat again. “When we first met, I was wearing this hoodie and you were helping me break up a fight.” She stopped to share a laugh with the crowd, who also sent up some whistles.  
Frankie pressed her own hand over her face, shaking her head while she blushed. So that was where she remembered the damn thing from.  
“Since then, this thing has been like a second wedding ring to me,” Jamia continued, “Even though we’ve had it since before we were married. I know you like superstitions, so I wanted to say this: this sweater is everything we need in a wedding except blue. It’s old but we still use it every day like it’s new, and we borrow it from each other constantly. We took it from our old apartment to our new house. I wore it to work a lot in the winter. You wrapped Peppers in it when we first adopted her, then took her out to a bar in it and let her shit all over a pushy stranger.” She paused again, grinning the same mischievous grin she’d ever had, while a grossed-out reaction sounded from the guests who hadn’t heard that particular story. Frankie, meanwhile, laughed like a hyena. “Somehow we didn’t need to wash it after that.  
“I know metaphors are more of your bag--” She smiled as Frankie shook her head, mouthing ‘No way’ and waving her hand around. “—but when I think of this hoodie I think of us. It fits both of us perfectly. We’ve shared it through everything. It’s just gotten more comfortable the longer we’ve had it. The colours have gotten a bit lighter, especially after we had the kids, since we _did_ have to wash it a lot.” There was a knowing laugh from the parents in the crowd. Cherry, Lily and Miles, who were sitting in the grass on the side of the front row, giggled since they knew that Mommy was talking about them. “But they’ve always been there, under everything that gets thrown on it.  
“I said when I started this speech that I think of this sweater like a second wedding ring. A couple weeks ago I asked you to marry me again. Today, I’d like to give you an actual second ring, to honour this wedding, and us, for all the times to come.”  
She held Frankie’s eyes for a second, then held the paper up to the crowd, mouthing, “That’s it.”  
Everyone _aww_ ’d and there were a few claps. Frankie wiped her face again.

Susan held out both of her hands and everyone quieted again. She looked at Frankie, smiling gently. “Jess, do you have anything you want to say?”  
“Shit,” Frankie answered honestly. She leaned back and laughed, pressing her hand to her forehead, hearing Mikey, Ray and Meghan laugh along with her as well as a lot of the crowd, and Jamia, who was shaking her head at the same time. Frankie could feel herself smiling goofily as she put her hand down, then coughed into her elbow. “Um. I do have a speech prepared, okay, for the record. But I can’t say it any better than that.” She gestured to Jamia’s sweater and the paper she still had in her hand.  
Jamia beamed. The whole world narrowed to her and her smile.  
Frankie wiped a piece of her hair out of her face, feeling the stem of the dandelion that was still hanging on. Her face felt flushed with blood, adrenaline and hope. “I love you,” she told her. “I love everything we’ve done together, and all the stuff we’ve gone through, because we’ve stayed together through all of it.” Frankie was, maybe, crying a little bit. Again. She really was a weepy motherfucker. “I have no idea what I did to deserve you. You’ve given me so much—a great family, a great home, our whole life. When I was younger I didn’t think I’d ever, ever be as happy as I am with you. I didn’t think I _could_ be. You’ve absolutely proved me wrong. You do that a lot, and I love it too.  
“Uh, the last time I got married to you, I got a permanent tattoo on my neck. So, y’know, that’s not nothing, as far as gestures go.” Jamia laughed again. “This time, though, like you said… I think I’ll be okay with sticking with another ring.”  
Jamia was a little misty-eyed too, now; she nodded and held out her hands. Frankie took immediately, squeezing.

 

The world opened up again with the sound of loud applause and a couple of whistles. Frankie looked over her shoulder at three of her closest friends, then ahead of herself, behind her wonderful wife to her brothers in-law and –music. Then she looked over her shoulder the other way to the crowd of family, friends and loved ones who were all clapping and beaming at her. Her kids had hopped to their feet and were clapping like they were at their first rock show and their favourite song had just rung out. Miles was trying to toddle forwards, but Frankie’s mom scooped him up before he could interrupt the ceremony. They both waved instead.

 

Susan pulled out a small, simply-decorated felt box from her pocket. The crowd hushed again. She handed it to Jamia, who opened it and carefully took out the ring. It was as simple and beautiful as the box: a gold band, with inlaid curves that looked like something elves from the Hobbit made. A small gem, not a diamond (because fuck diamond companies, seriously) but just as lovely, glittered from the central part of the band.  
Jamia held it out to Frankie, who offered her right hand. Jamia slid the ring onto Frankie’s third finger, where it mirrored Frankie’s left hand, and then twined their fingers together.  
“I need that,” Frankie said quietly. Jamia released her hand with a snicker.  
Frankie used her now-free hand to pull her mother’s blue gemstone ring off of her opposite pinky, and then held it out to Jamia’s outstretched hand in turn. She slid it onto Jamia’s left-hand wedding finger, where it rested on top of her first wedding band, blue and silver with gold.  

“And so it is,” Susan announced. She pressed her hand on top of their linked ones. “Bless you both, and may your life together continue well.”

 

The guests of honour sent up a cheer, then, that almost drowned out Susan saying, “And obviously you can kiss.”  
Jamia and Frankie both heard it though. They both leaned forwards and met each other in the middle, as they had so many times in their life. Susan let go of their hands, and they let go of each other to wrap their arms around each other’s waists instead.  
Frankie thought about trying to dip her wife, but her own back was already twinging a bit from standing up rod-straight for so long and she didn’t want to drop Jamia onto the grass. At least not until all the people watching were gone and she could immediately join her. The moment filled Frankie’s head up like light, like a song.

 

When they pulled apart it was to more wolf whistles and _aww’s_. Behind Jamia and consequently out of Frankie’s realm of care, Evan split off from the group to join Dewees at the snack table by the back corner, where they’d wait for the newly-again-weds to cut into the cake and then make more slices to hand out to everybody.

Jamia’s eyes were bright and perfect. Her hands were warm on Frankie’s back and hip. She smiled at Frankie, kissed her cheek lightly again. “We should do this again sometime,” she said, under her breath. “It’s a lot of fun.”  
Frankie leaned sideways to laugh, still holding onto her wife tightly. “We absolutely should,” she agreed. “It’s pretty alright.”

 

 

_-fin-_


End file.
